Laguna Niguel's Gateway at a crossroads

This block of Forbes Road, north of Crown Valley Parkway, includes several low-rise office buildings and auto shops. Four of the buildings will be demolished to make way for the recently approved Gateway Village complex.CITY OF LAGUNA NIGUEL

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An apartment project approved last week for the heart of Laguna Niguel's Gateway District has drawn concern from area business owners and officials who see a possible shift in the original vision for the area.

The 351-unit apartment complex known as Gateway Village calls for four to six stories, open courtyards and a five-level parking structure off Forbes Road near Crown Valley Parkway. Apartments will have one to three bedrooms. Onsite amenities will include a pool, spa and fitness rooms. The project also includes three retail spaces facing Forbes.

But the project has brought confusion over what the district between I-5 and the 73 toll road will eventually look like. Some have said the original plan was to create a bustling downtown atmosphere with retail shops, while others say the biggest goal was simply to bring more family housing to the area.

Existing business owners in the largely industrial area, meanwhile, are mostly wondering what will happen if and when they are forced to leave.

The new apartment complex from Forbes Investment Partners could break ground early next year. It would join two other major apartment projects currently under construction further west off Cabot Road – the Crown Apartments and Career Lofts. They are the first major projects implemented under the Gateway Specific Plan, approved more than a decade ago.

City Planner Larry Longenecker said the City Council's original idea for Gateway was straightforward.

"The vision is to be very flexible and responsive to the market," he said.

EVOLVING PLAN?

Planning Commissioner William Kelley was the lone vote against the Gateway Village permit and tentative site map at the commission's meeting last week.

"Essentially, there is no retail (in this project), in terms of what constitutes the Gateway area," Kelley said. "Frankly, I'm a little hesitant to approve something that is so much different from what (the original Gateway Specific Plan) calls for."

"It's become clear that the retail component of this project was an afterthought," he added, after hearing that Forbes Investment Partners had originally proposed the project without any retail. City staff then encouraged the developer to add shops to the project.

As approved last week, Gateway Village will have three retail spaces facing Forbes Road that total about 6,000 square feet.

The Gateway Specific Plan, however, calls for 10 times the retail space inside an overall project of this size – a requirement that, city staff suggested in its report on the project, was unrealistic from the start, when the Gateway plan was hatched in 1999 and later updated in 2011. Longenecker said this week that perhaps the retail requirement should be re-examined.

The retail requirement "is more typical of regional-serving commercial uses, not the resident supporting uses proposed with the" Gateway Village project, the report said.

Other concessions made for the project included allowing a project density of 70 housing units per acre – though 50 is the maximum in the specific plan – and 110 parking spaces where 206 are required.

Related Links

This block of Forbes Road, north of Crown Valley Parkway, includes several low-rise office buildings and auto shops. Four of the buildings will be demolished to make way for the recently approved Gateway Village complex. CITY OF LAGUNA NIGUEL
Plans for the Gateway Village project off Forbes Road in Laguna Niguel call for four to six stories containing 351 apartments built around open courtyards. ILLUSTRATION BY HUMPHREYS & PARTNERS ARCHITECTS
Gateway Village plans nearly 6,000 square feet of retail space on the ground level. ILLUSTRATION BY HUMPHREYS & PARTNERS ARCHITECTS
Forbes Investment Partners' planned Gateway Village in Laguna Niguel. ILLUSTRATION BY HUMPHREYS & PARTNERS ARCHITECTS
A sign at the intersection of Crown Valley Parkway and Forbes Road in Laguna Niguel announces the Gateway area. SAM GANGWER, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Career Lofts, north of Crown Valley Parkway, will have 142 luxury apartments and a subterranean parking garage. Grading and construction on the site began months ago. CITY OF LAGUNA NIGUEL
Crown Apartments, at the corner of Crown Valley Parkway and Cabot Road, is one of two apartment projects in the Gateway District in the early construction phases. It will eventually have 284 units and a parking garage. CITY OF LAGUNA NIGUEL

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